Newell Rubbermaid Enlists Influenster

CPG giant boosts social cred with campaign

Consumer goods giant Newell Rubbermaid is running a campaign this month for its fashion accessories brand Goody Hair via Influenster after a promising six-week test on the social-sharing site late in 2012.

The campaign centers on Influenster's 200,000 product junkies who write reviews about branded items to earn "expert" badges and get free samples from various companies—in this case, Goody Hair. The brand will target that community, which skews female and has a large fashionista contingent, to get buzz for its new QuikStyle Paddle Brush. Influenster members can earn badge points by spreading the word about the hairbrush on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.

Janki Gambhir, New Rubbermaid's director of marketing, said her company's social audience was much smaller before its recent Influenster test for a hair-pin product called the Goody Hair Spin Pin. Gambhir said that Goody Hair increased its Facebook fans (+40 percent) and Twitter followers (+26 percent), while encouraging 580 new YouTube video uploads and 220 Pinterest followers, while sales of the product increased 40 percent.

The revenue jump is nice, although Gambhir said her primary goal was ramping up the company's social presence.

"We want to drive awareness for new products and grow our audience on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube through Influenster," she told Adweek. "Admittingly, we are still new in digital. This provides us a way to grow."